Ethers at the threshold of the ordinarily perceived Physical World are simply a rarefied condition of matter, but slight physical development is required for their investigation. In fact, thousands of people who have given no special thought to either psychic or spiritual development have seen, and are continually seeing, one or more of them without knowing there is anything unusual about the experience. As the Aquarian Age draws near the number of persons sensitive to the finer ethers will increase year by year. Even now there are cases on record among pioneering scientists where etheric vision is momentarily opened in the course of particular investigations.
The etheric region may be designated as the atomic and sub-atomic areas of the material world. Invisible to human senses as now developed, ether is none the less a substance belonging to the Physical World, though raised to a higher vibratory octave than physical matter. This being so, it is gradually yielding up to material scientists many mysteries that for centuries have been known only to occultists.
It is quite otherwise with the Desire or Astral World. Unlike the region of the ethers, the realm of the Desire World is another plane of being. It is not just a finer gradation of matter. Actually, it is non-material; it is astral. While it flows in and through the Physical World, interpenetrating the chemical and etheric regions of the physical and constantly influencing all activities within this sphere, it is of a different nature and subject to laws other than those operating in either the Physical World or the higher worlds of mind and spirit.
Students unfamiliar with occult terminology will have no difficulty in understanding the Desire World if they think of it as the world of the heart's desire or simply as the Soul World; for this "World" or state of consciousness corresponds to what orthodox theology describes as "hell" and/or "heaven" where the Spirit abides after physical death. The orthodox heaven is a place of inconceivable bliss, every heart's desire being fulfilled through God's infinite goodness and love. The occultist prefers to give this "place," this state of consciousness another name. It is generally known in Western Wisdom Teachings as the Desire or Astral World.
When, in later infancy, a child begins to be conscious of its environment, at first it is not aware of the substance of things. It does not realize that certain solid objects can bruise its body or that sharp objects will pierce it. Nor does it have a sense of distance. Even an adult is not able to perceive with his physical senses the atoms comprising the substance of material forms, including his own body. In a similar way, when first entering the Desire World untrained clairvoyants see its forms but not the nature of the substance of which those forms are composed. This being so, observations recorded are not uniform, some being based on clearer seeing and deeper understanding than others. This accounts for the variation in the visions of Church saints, who may be mystical Seers but not necessarily trained clairvoyants. Consequently, their conclusions are not always corroborated by the findings of occult scientists who have made a study of that world.
The Desire World is composed of what may best be described as force-matter. Unlike ether, desire substance is not just a finer gradation of chemical matter. Physical instruments cannot penetrate its secrets. It is the world of life, feeling, emotion. As our bodies with their physiological functions consist of material substance, so our feelings, sensations, and emotions assume tangible form in the force-matter of the Desire World, each type having its own particular form, color, and rate of vibration. It is not incorrect to say that the emotional states of mankind combine to form a globe-encircling, globe-penetrating "cloud" or "aura" which, in every sense of the word, constitutes a world of its own.
The Desire World is not a space-time realm. It belongs to what mathematicians call the "fourth dimension;" and the aura, the feeling body, is in fact a fourth dimensional body. Its senses (sensations) are, by its very nature, keener than those known to man when in a physical body — as is evidenced, for example, by the ecstasy accompanying that soul-transporting experience known as Illumination.
The force-matter of the Desire World is in continuous motion, pulsating in a brilliant kaleidoscopic array of ever-changing lights and colors. Its basic "substance" is soul light, out of which everything is formed. Where soul light is either partly or completely absent there exists the condition spoken of in the Bible as "outer darkness," where dwells unregenerate Spirits until purged of the base elements in their natures. This is the purgatorial region of Catholic theology, the hell of Protestant orthodoxy.
Force-matter or basic soul light is both positive and negative, masculine and feminine, in function. The term fire and water as applied to the masculine and feminine principles, respectively, derive from the Desire World — for here the masculine qualities now manifest in fiery, glittering radiations familiar to every Seer, while feminine soul qualities are visible as most exquisite colors seen in clouds of light having a distinctly watery appearance, a water such as no one on earth sees with physical vision. As evolution advances feminine souls display more and more of the fiery masculine qualities, while masculine souls take on the ethereal beauty of the feminine.
In our present state of unfoldment desire is the mainspring of action. It motivates our conduct and thought. Such being the case, angelic Beings inhabiting the Desire World are of prime importance to our development.
The dominant laws of the Desire World are those of Attraction, Metamorphosis, and Transformation. Added to these is the Law of Repulsion, the force of bate and self-assertion that prevails on lowest levels of this world. Fairy tales are beautiful illustrations of the ever-changing substance of this realm, where form is not fixed as in thd Physical World but constantly metamorphosizing.
The Desire World is the home of innumerable Beings who operate in divers subtle ways to influence man by means of his desires and emotions. Their activities are sensed but their presence is unperceived by the vast majority of people. To the activities of these denizens of that realm man owes his inestimable opportunity for growth through experience, by which he is building increasing moral strength and beauty and achieving mental vivification — for in our present stage of development the average man's mind is but dimly awakened.
As previously stated, the principal element of the Desire World is soul-light, the chief function of which is transmutation (metamorphosis). It is readily amenable to the power of thought. Both the Archangels (Hierarchy of Capricorn) and the Angels (Hierarchy of Aquarius) are active in the higher heavenly region of this world, whereas the Lucifers have charge of the lower purgatorial levels. The Lucifers' activities, however, are not confined to these levels but are now extending into the heaven realms as well.
How the two divisions of the Desire World, the higher planes where the force of Attraction holds sway and the lower where the force of Repulsion is dominant, are related to human experiences and the manner in which they operate are the subject of this lesson.
Man is a free agent. He can revel in unbridled passion (low desire); he can elect to live, as do the majority, by drawing to himself proportionate amounts of both high and low desire substance; he can follow the spiritual path, as do true aspirants, and thereby lay hold of transmuting, transforming powers having their source in the higher planes of the Desire World. In these higher planes is the Fountain of Life, the Fountain of Youth long sought for by medieval alchemists but entered only by those who give their all to the Quest.
According to the chronology of Genesis it was the Third Creative Day, the Moon Period according to occult terminology, that certain divine Beings called Lords of Individuality (Libra) radiated from themselves the nucleus of man's archetypal desire body. The opal is ruled by Libra; if we think of the play of colors in that precious stone it will help us to remember this correlation of the Lords of Libra with work on the desire body which is opalescent in appearance.
At that stage of evolution we had not yet acquired a physical body, nor had our solar system reached its present state of density. Man's body and surroundings had "descended" only to the etheric level. Any indication of chemical elements making up the present physical world would have been sub-atomic and discernible only by instruments, such as the most delicate of modern science, and by the most abstruse mathematical calculations. It was. nothing more than a magnetic field of life, visible to inner senses at the close of the Period as a sphere of "fire-fog" and definitely "watery" in appearance.
The germinal desire body was a thought form. This filmy vehicle has not yet fully assumed the pattern and symmetry of a human being but appears somewhat similar to a luminous ovoid or sheath of color surrounding the physical body and projecting several inches beyond it. As before noted, desire substance sparkles and radiates light and color in continuous motion. The colors and movements vary according to the emotion which is dominant, or with the prevailing sensation. Thus, passions and desires are mirrored therein with accuracy. In primitive or undeveloped persons, where the nature tends largely toward gratification of the physical senses, the desire body appears to be smoldering. This smoldering effect is varied by heavy dull colors — predominantly dark red, dull brown, and muddy green, with splashes of grey and black — and is practically static. Intense feeling will give rise to momentary flashes of these colors, but with the passing of excitation they lapse into their former smoldering state.
By the time that early humanity received from the Lords of Mind (Hierarchy of Sagittarius) the germinal mind pattern, powers of the desire body had become so strong and powerful that they utterly controlled the emerging mind. The long and arduous task of evolution has been to free the human mind from domination by desire that it may become the instrument of spirit. There is now a small minority which is guided by reason and some few rare individuals who are led by the Spirit, but the masses are still largely controlled by desire.
The struggle between the lower animal desire and the Spirit is clearly apparent in the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type of dual personality which so often baffles psychologists. But anyone able to study the finer vehicles of man may observe and tabulate the actions and reactions of both upon the body-self of an individual.
When work on the human desire body was started in the Moon Period the field of evolution was charged with a slow red current, the fundamental color tone of all desire and all stimulating activity from the lowest to the highest. This charge enabled the Lords of Individuality to arouse a psychic activity in man that remains with him in the red blood coursing through his arteries. Also, this color was used by the Lucifers to entice early humans into sense realms. A variety of the scarlet-flame color is still characteristic of war hysteria and sensuality, and is the actual substance of so-called "hell-fire." It is the color vibration of the planet Mars and the star Antares in Scorpio. But when this deepens to the glowing brilliance of the Ruby Soul, the person enters upon a phase of transmutation belonging to the higher functioning of the Soul World.
In the case of an average person who desires to live according to his highest impulses, but whose interests are centered largely in his personal life, the colors visible in his desire body are more varied and volatile. Red has been superseded by green as the dominant vibration, although a certain tone of dark green signifies selfishness. The red tones have become lighter and brighter, with modulations of pink. Yellows and blues may appear, and there is usually much grey (fear) in the average aura. Desire is separative in tendency. So long as the human race is animated by selfishness it will be coerced by fear inspired by self-interest.
The desire body is destined to be a vehicle of such light, color, and beauty as beggars description. Responsive to the slightest impact of spirit, sensitive to the most ethereal radiations from cosmic space, it will be a most efficient instrument of creation.
In the Earth Period various centers or vortices of light and color appeared in this body of light. These are usually seen in or about the head of a person. In those who are developed spiritually they may be seen in other parts of the body — not, indeed, within the body, but at points in the area corresponding to definite parts of the body. The usual tabulation lists seven principal centers corresponding to the seven planets of the Ptolemaic system: five planets, Sun and Moon. It is more accurate, however, to list twelve, number of the zodiacal constellations. While these are the most developed centers, investigators familiar with both occidental and oriental records maintain that in addition to the primary seven there are twenty-one minor centers, and forty-nine others in addition to these twenty-one. This accounts for the fact that various teachers give different listings.
It may be noted in passing that certain modes of meditation develop certain chains of interacting centers in the more subtle vehicles.
Antagonistic forces in nature and in man are usually considered "evil" because they are the cause of destructive reactions. But occultists declare there is a cosmic Law which is all good; so long as harmonious relationship with that Law exists there can be no manifestations of a negative or harmful character. More than three centuries before Christ, Plato affirmed: "There is in matter a blind refractory force which resists the will of the Great Artificer." In Christianity this resistant force is identified as Satan (Satan) or the Devil (Mars).
In the Book of Job is found one of the most magnificent portrayals in all literature of the unhindered operation of the Saturnian force and the final effects of its control and transformation into good. Because mankind has not yet learned, as did Job, to work with Saturn, disease, poverty, and death are regarded as the besetting evils of this earthly existence. They are truly rampant in the world and have caused our planet to be named "the dark orb" and "the sorrowful star." St. Paul summed up the important work outlined in the Book of Job tersely: "Be not overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good."
An analytical study of Job will reveal that the operations of Satan (Saturn) are not inherently malefic. Their purpose is disciplinary. It was Job's failure to comprehend this fact in the beginning that caused his downfall. By learning to work with this force and to direct it constructively rather than destructively, he was reinstated in the midst of All Good and given "tenfold more than he possessed before." The story of Job is the story of Everyman. The happy, opulent, and successful Job is the ideal of attainment for all mankind.
Evil results from the inharmonious interactions of duality under the Law of Opposites. Perfect harmony can be produced only through the harmonious action and reaction of contraries, or opposing forces. Properly understood, darkness is indispensable to light; and for this reason it is good, not evil.
In his Edenic state man was an automaton, guided and directed by Messengers of Light. He possessed no incentive for independent growth. When he received the germ of mind with its separative tendency, and this mind was joined to his desire body, already grown strong, the long struggle began between his lower and higher natures: between spirit and matter, between light and darkness. Thus it was that so-called evil entered the life of humanity. Religion portrays this crisis in man's evolutionary journey as the "Fall." At this time he did, indeed, lose "heaven, " for his lower desire nature predominated and shut his consciousness away from its source.
However, when thus shut away from the " Father's House" the Ego awakened and began to assert itself. Then began its long pilgrimage home, as described in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. This pilgrimage began with Adam and Eve (early Lemurian man) and will continue until every human Ego has gained reunion with the Father through development of its Christed nature.
Evil is therefore impermanent. In reality, it is the spur of pain, the whiplash of a divine discontent, that drives Everyman away from the "foreign country" of materialism and back to the Father's house, where he comes to know himself as a god and "goes no more out."
In Persian mysticism it is said that Ahriman (darkness) is but the insubstantial reflection of Ahura-mazda (Light). This ancient doctrine was later incorporated in the Sufi teachings as the Law of Opposites, Sufi Masters saying that things can be known only through their opposites and that being must therefore be known through its reflection in not-being. They then regarded evil as a phase of Not-being in that it had no real existence of its own. Mary Baker Eddy's statement that evil is the "suppositional opposite" of Good conveys the same idea.
God is Spirit, eternal, All Good. He can be reached and known only by means of spiritual attainment. Man was created in the image and likeness of God, but by linking his mind with desire instead of uniting it with spirit, he fell from his high estate. He may rise again, however, by following the teachings of wisdom and striving against evil-the existence of which has been permitted that man may exercise his free will and thus cultivate discrimination. Sorrow, pain and evil are part of a beneficent plan, the ultimate goal of which is perfection.
Inherently, man is a free, intelligent being. That he may become fully conscious of his divine creative power he must learn to discriminate between right and wrong, between good and evil, and exercise his own indwelling godhood by right choices. His present heritage of disease, poverty, and death is the result of his having violated cosmic Law. As he brings his life into conformity with that Law he will rise above these limitations. It is no longer considered an indication of spirituality to be weak and ailing, to be poverty stricken or miserable. "All that the Father hath is mine." declared the Christ. And in these words he revealed the plenitude that is man's when he lives true to divine Law.
Fear is a powerful negative emotion that so affects the desire body it reacts adversely on the whole human organism. The liver is particularly subject to this adverse influence because it is the organ that links the desire body to the physical. Children, being highly receptive to harrowing impressions, should be protected as far as possible from fears of every type. In this connection, the responsibility of parents, teachers, and nurses toward their charges is far greater than they usually realize. Instilling fear thoughts in the subconscious mind of a child, threats of punishment, or relating lurid horror-stories, results in injuries that will endure throughout the whole lifetime of the individual. The effects of fear on a highly imaginative youngster, or one of a nervous, excitable temperament, is especially serious. Children born under Pisces or Cancer are most susceptible to such emotional disturbances. The karmic debt incurred by those who contribute to a child's fear psychosis must be paid, in some cases in the form of a broken body, shattered nerves, or a weakened mind.
There is a long period of evolution behind the emotion of fear. "Fear came into the world with the dawn of life, and man, as well as every other living creature, has inherited it down through all the ages cf existence," writes Dr. Stanley G. Hall, psychologist. "The brain of man is divided into two parts, the old and the new, the cerebullum and the cerebrum. The latter . . . the seat of intellect ... is the new brain and the former, the cerebellum, is the old brain. Here are stored all of man's primitive and animal instincts, of which fear is one. Fear paralyzes the intellect and awakens and lets loose all dormant powers of the old brain, which explains why it is not possible to tell what a man may do when he is thoroughly frightened. This accounts for his animal-like actions under fear . . . Sometimes in excesses he becomes insane and sometimes even dies."
All this is consonant with the findings of occultists. They understand that the cerebellum is the "old brain." That is, it has been in evolution longer than the forebrain, the cerebrum. As the directive center of the sympathetic nervous system, the "old brain" traces its evolutionary history to the Moon Period, the Third Creative Day of Earth's evolution. It was not until the initial phase of development in the present Earth. Period (technically, the Saturn Revolution) that the first impulse was given for building the frontal area of the brain. At that time the nervous system first worked into the twofold division now known as the voluntary and sympathetic systems. Thus, the voluntary nervous system originated in the Earth Period; the sympathetic system in the Moon Period. It was not until the Lemurian Epoch of the Earth Period that the voluntary system was worked upon by Lucifer Angels and the Lords of Mind until the brain developed into something like its present form. And not until that time did the human body become really human.
The previously discussed sense centers of the desire body made their first appearance during our present Earth Period — which accounts for the special connection between these centers and the development of the physical senses, the brain and nervous system being the "highest expression of the desire body." Where there is now a nerve there was once only a desire current. Our nerves transmit pictures from the outside world, but in the creative work of imagination it is the blood that carries the pictures. This fact, not generally known to students, is of great importance in the alchemical processes of spiritual development.
Fear was the spur that awakened Lemurian man to the existence of the outer world. In primitive man it was aroused primarily through the operations of Nature, then violent and cataclysmic in its manifestation of storms, volcanic eruptions, cyclones, earthquakes, and other disturbances. Humanity was then sufficiently clairvoyant to see mighty elemental forces on the inner planes. From man's efforts to propitiate them arose various forms of religious ceremonials; also the medicine man and the priest. The first places of worship were huts erected over the graves of chieftains.
Primitive tribes now located in many areas of the earth stupefy themselves with drug-bearing leaves to produce more vivid clairvoyance than they ordinarily experience. By this means they have become aware of the fact that individuals possess doubles which function apart from their physical bodies during hours of sleep, and separate permanently from them at death. "All men's shadows wander at night," they declare. Propitiation of the shadows they see connected to all creatures, both human and animal, has led to elaborate rituals that are in part love offerings to "good" spirits and fear tributes to those considered as "evil." Thus since the dawn of human evolution man has been aware of two conflicting forces, one beneficent and the other malevolent; that is, gods and devils. His superstitions and terrors have been cultivated or allayed in exact ratio to his understanding of those forces; and this has been in proportion to the sincerity and wisdom, or the dishonesty and ignorance, of his priests and leaders.
History has no record of a primitive race lacking a system of demonology and corresponding propitiatory rituals. Any religion, whether ancient or modern, that teaches demonology to its followers is a religion of fear, not of love. Such teaching has been widespread for so many centuries that fear has come to be recognized in this day as the worst disease of civilization.
The cerebellum, or "old brain," is located at the back of the head before and above the medulla. Through it discarnate entities influence those whom they wish to victimize. Obsession was the most common disease known to man so long as he functioned primarily through that negative, or feminine, center and its complementary sympathetic nervous system.
In the present Earth Day (Fourth of the Septenary Cycle) man began a new era of evolutionary development in preparation for a higher phase of spiritual cognition. The initial work of this Day has been evolving the "new brain," the cerebrum which is located in the front part of the skull. As already noted, it is the seat of intellect, the center of the conscious and reasoning mind and its concomitant cerebro-spinal nervous system. This is the most important human development to date.
During this Fourth Creative Day (Earth Period) humanity has been given a new type of religion, one wherein love supersedes fear. All fear religions had their place in primeval eras, but that time is past and their work is completed. A return to the superstitious, fear-engendering ways of ancient worship would be retrogression and devolution. With the Christ's entry upon the scene a new force flowed into the desire body of man, a force that carries the powers of two celestial Hierarchies: the Lords of Individuality (Libra) and the Hierarchy of Capricorn (Archangels).
Astrologically, Libra is the sign ruling discrimination and its symbol is the Balance, or Scales. The Lords of Individuality bestowed upon infant humanity the germ of the desire body, and in our present Earth Period the Archangels are most active in the fiery desire stuff. Therefore, man's desire body is composed of purer substance than it was prior to Christ's coming. As the archangelic forces continue to play through these desire bodies they are stimulated to renewed activity by the fiery emanations. In this way man has been so liberated from racial karma that he is free to choose his own path without hindrance by the swarms of elementals that enslaved the ancient world. The archetypal pattern for the race is now set to love, not to fear. But many have preferred to follow the desires of the flesh, so that disease, poverty, and death, together with divers attending fears have been humanity's intimates when they might have companioned with the soul forces of unity, abundance, and immortality.
While their desire natures were strong and their minds were weak, men could be governed only by fear. The Ten Commandments were their foremost manual of religion, the keynote of which was expressed in the statement "Fear is the beginning of wisdom" — although the word fear as used in the Bible implies reverence as well. By this time we should have finished the religious fear cycle but we have not done so, and this sad failure has left its distinct mark upon the desire bodies of the race. This is shown by the slowing down of the desire currents, from which originate many present-day diseases and an increasing number of mental and nervous breakdowns. Never have mental institutions been so crowded. A detailed, analytical study of various emotional complexes has brought many physicians and their patients to the very door opening upon occult realms. Congenial occupation or service rendered in love and selflessness is a panacea for ills suffered in the desire body-ills which, if not checked, can lead to serious moral and physical afflictions.
Elemental spirits have not yet developed to the point where they can respond to more than a single tone, and their one tone may be either sorrowful or joyful. The sorrowful tone is in a minor key corresponding to the vibratory note of fear, worry, or the like. When such a note is sounded an elemental spirit attuned to that particular minor key is attracted and embodies itself in the originating negative thought. From then on it lives and feeds on every similar thought and attracts other people's related thoughts until its host's whole aura is affected. While these elemental-ensouled thoughts may not be seen their influence is great, since everything and every one are viewed through the atmosphere they create.
An individual so afflicted radiates pessimism and distrust. He is eventually encased in a steel gray aura and is the most difficult of all patients to heal, whether treatment be by materia medica, or spiritual therapeutics. There is, however, one power that can penetrate this aura and, operating in and through the life of the sufferer, can even effect a cure. That power is love.
When such an unfortunate is freed from his physical body at death he is confronted by the fearful shapes be himself created during his earthly sojourn. Those newly released are often frantic with terror until fright arouses the necessary courage to put these elementals to rout. So long as they are feared they have dominion; when fear is replaced by confidence, by self-assurance, negative forces are compelled to yield up their power and free the Ego.
The foregoing explains the terrible tests and ugly experiences undergone by neophytes, as described in occult novels. As the neophyte develops extended vision and inner planes unfold before him, he is confronted with self-created lower astral forms. If he does not recognize them for what they are, or has not developed strength and courage with which to meet them, be fails the test. On the other hand, if he can confront them with understanding and determination, be is their master and as such is qualified to take the next step on the Path.
Astral elements of man's making are really thought-forms charged with desire substance. They are less substantial than the air about us and can be instantly dispelled by the exercise of will power. Not until they are overcome is the Ego free to ascend to higher levels — a truth beautifully exemplified in Wagner's version of Siegfried. When this valiant Spirit has slain the dragon lie is able to climb the mountain and penetrate the engirdling fire separating him from Brunhilde (Truth), the subject of his great quest.
Fear is the chief deterrent to an aspirant's ability to serve on inner planes as a conscious Invisible Helper. Not infrequently it bars entrance to the place or person most in need of help, and tends to draw a serving Ego back into its body. In treading the upward Path every Spirit must pass through the lowest regions of the Desire World (Purgatory) where human and subhuman Spirits of the most undesirable nature are congregated to await cleansing and correction prior to liberation. They are the earthbound, the suicides whose natural term of life has not yet expired, and elementals of various types. Only the fearless can enter this realm and remain immune to all these evil influences.
Fear arises from a false sense of separateness. To the degree that we realize our essential unity with God — of whom we are a part and in whom we literally live, move, and have our being — are we free from fear. Being one in consciousness with God (Good) identifies us with the whole, thus leaving nothing in separateness from which ill can come. Contemplation of positive qualities of character, together with a persistent cultivation of confidence and courage, will ultimately lead to a conquest of all fear. Affirmative statements of virtues desired may be of help.
Soul attributes of faith and love are represented by John and Peter, the two foremost Disciples. The noblest healing work recorded in the New Testament is accomplished. in their presence. Cultivation of faith and love is of the utmost importance. If we persist in our efforts to develop these virtues in the face of fear and discouragement, the day will come when we will know beyond all question of a doubt that "perfect love casteth out fear" and reveals the secret door opening upon Liberation.
There are persons who have surrendered themselves so completely to evil and degenerate practices that they have temporarily silenced the voice of their higher nature. They are so cut off from the promptings of their spirit-selves they actually find satisfaction only in giving free rein to their baser desires. Such often become sadists, taking pleasure in inflicting pain on others. If they continue their fiendish and immoral practices over prolonged periods, the higher and lower ethers composing their vital bodies will become so firmly interlocked that they will not separate at death, as they do under normal conditions. Then no part of the vital body gravitates back to the dense body, where ordinarily the two lower ethers disintegrate with the physical vehicle. Instead, they remain attached to the higher, thus preventing the latter from going forward with its natural progression on higher planes. These are some of the facts that account for earthbound Spirits remaining in our immediate environment for longer or shorter periods after death.
As the vital body may become so set as to lose freedom for rising into higher realms of the spiritual world, so may a like fate overtake the desire body. The astral vehicle may become so heavily laden with earthly impulses that it is unable to rise to its proper level when freed from the physical body at death. Cruelty, hate, vindictiveness, lust, and similar thoughts and emotions harden the vital body, while all negative, selfish, or destructive emotions harden the desire body.
When the vital and desire bodies become interlocked in the grip of their baser, unyielding substance, they form what is known in occultism as the sin body. It is this that becomes earth-bound. That is, it is bound by its own nature and desires to the physical plane. The Ego then misses its normal purgation immediately following release from the physical body, as is the divine beneficent plan. If this were to take place in one whose vital and desire bodies are sin-locked, the Ego's torture would be past endurance. The necessary separation between the evil built into such a body and the Spirit inherent therein does not take place, therefore, until after a longer or shorter lapse of time, during which the evil condition is generally "worn down."
The "sin body" of an earthbound entity stays close to the earth plane for a period varying with conditions, and it clings like a leech to persons and places where it can feed on the heavy, noxious emanations of liquor, tobacco, blood, and all "foul and pestilential vapors" that arise from these contacts. In extreme cases an earthbound entity has been known to hover for centuries about haunts whereto its evil deeds have linked it. These are the "ghosts" that haunt places, and some ghosts have become historic through their long association with ancient castles and famous old estates.
At the dawn of the Christian era the Earth was literally haunted by large numbers of Egos held captive in their sin bodies. They were the cause of the obsessions and of many bodily ills encountered by the Christ in His healing ministry. What He did for individuals so afflicted while He ministered in the flesh He has continued to do cosmically for humanity as a whole. The influence He releases into our planetary sphere is of such a redemptive character that it has gradually lessened malefic conditions of both outer and inner planes, thus reducing the number of Egos held in bondage.
Two factors make it difficult for an earthbound Spirit to return to normal. The first has to do with its life in a physical body; the second with its life after leaving the physical plane. In the former instance the evil far outweighs the good; hence, elements of immortality for building into the soul are lacking. In the latter instance the conscience is undeveloped because of the absence of purgation out of which conscience evolves.
Evil, like good, "grows by what it feeds on," so the tendency is for evil to grow increasingly worse and for good to grow progressively better. Unless some drastic experiences intervene to stay and alter the downward course, one given over to evil reaches the point of severance between his personality and its higher egoic counterpart. He literally becomes a soulless, conscienceless creature capable of unbelievably cold blooded and fiendish crimes. He will be completely unemotional and without any indication of remorse during the re-enactment of a most hideous offense. The fact is that he has no feeling about it, his emotions having been dulled by the hardening of his desire body. They are no longer fluidic and responsive to emotional impacts. Such persons are the most dangerous of all types of criminals and the hardest to control.
Modern psychology has gone far in exploring physical conditions underlying abnormal behavior as described, and has developed scientific techniques for assisting such persons to return to normalcy. When scientific psychiatry effectively supplements the best of medical practice, the two conjoined will. come into enlightened spiritual understanding. Then we shall have a beneficent healing ministry under practitioners who are in very truth priest-physicians — enlightened ones who will treat patients not merely as physical bodies, nor yet as physical-emotional-mental mechanisms, but as Spirits possessing several vehicles of expression. These scientific-spiritual healers will look upon ailing man as a spiritual being in a physical body and minister to him accordingly.
Comparatively speaking, evil's reign on earth will soon end. Consequently, the Black Brothers are using every wile to bring under their control all who can be influenced by them. Their aim is to wreak as much havoc and spread as much dissension as possible in the time left. They are the main instigators of evil manifest in the world today, war being one form of it. They must have food to sustain them, else they starve and die. They survive and wax strong on energies generated by hate, treachery, greed, envy, cruelty, and every demoniac deed in the calendar of crime. Hence, all who indulge in destructive thoughts, feelings, or actions are furnishing them with sustenance, and this carries a tremendous karmic debt.
Instead of transmuting darkness into light as does the White Brotherhood, the Black Brothers seek to increase evil with a view to over-balancing the power of good. To further their objective they secure the aid of elementals and discarnate Spirits of a low order who are amenable to engaging in the required vicious practices. These provocateurs gather in liquor joints, gambling dens, houses of iniquity, slaughter pens and like places, where they feed on the sordid emanations and try to gain control of their operators and those who frequent them, instigating responsiveness to over-indulgence that leads to crime. It is no exaggeration to say that entrance into a saloon or brothel is often the first step on the road to ruin, because sinister projections from the other side of the veil are more powerful than influences of the physical plane.
As said before, the Black Brotherhood and those who follow in its train forfeit the benefits of after-life purgation by failing to polarize their soul bodies with forces generated by pure feeling, constructive thinking, and right action. They eventually become anomalies in evolution. Freed from the laws of birth and death, they wan der through space until their very existence is a greater torture than any purgatorial experience could be. Such has been said to be the fate of Herodias who instigated the death of John the Forerunner. Her early life was prolonged indefinitely by her dark and magical arts.
Unenviable is the lot of those who fall out of line with the evolutionary progression of the life wave to which they belong. At some far future time they must join another life wave and pass through all the earlier stages of development, while at the same time retaining a consciousness of what they have lost.
The law of karma was stated by Paul: "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." The Secret Doctrine states that karma (karman) is a word of many meanings, and that there is a special term for almost every one of its aspects. As a synonym for sin it denotes performance of some worldly, hence selfish, action which cannot fail to hurt someone else. Karma is action, or cause; one of its definitions is "law of ethical causation."
Both the White and Black Brotherhoods are comprised of individuals who have reached an advanced stage in the development of their inherent powers. The former use these powers in service to the world and for the betterment of mankind. The latter mis-use them for selfish ends — for example by instigating self-glorification on the part of ail unwary neophyte, with a concomitant exploitation of others. We thus see that motivation is the all-important difference between the two Brotherhoods. While the majority of humanity will not develop sufficiently to enter either of these groups for some lives to come, by thought, word, and act every individual is creating conditions which will sooner or later work out to place him (or her) in one or the other. That is karma, the Law of Cause and Effect. It is the power that controls and directs evolution. While it neither rewards nor punishes, it unerringly guides causes to the consummation of their inherent effects.
When the link of mind was given to man in the Earth Period, each Ego became responsible for its own acts because it then entered wholly into its vehicles and could direct them from within. It is the union of mind with the desire body that leads man into trouble and thereby stores up adverse karma which sometime, somewhere, must be liquidated. The desire body is almost pure energy forever seeking an outlet in some form of activity, good, bad, or indifferent. It is creative in nature and cannot remain dormant for a moment. If the Ego does not direct this energy into constructive channels, if it permits its mind to be ruled by desire instead of by its Spirit-self, that energy is liable to express in ways inharmonious to divine Law. The result is discord, pain, sorrow, poverty, and woe. Psychoanalysts call this desire energy libido, and rightly do they emphasize the dangers arising from its uncontrolled expression.
It is obvious that the material world is almost wholly a realm of effects that originate in mental and emotional conditions, so our thoughts and emotions are the main source of causation. Thoughts stir up emotions and emotions give rise to thoughts, either or both of which generally end in action of some sort. It must be emphasized, therefore, that every individual is responsible for his thoughts and feelings as well as for his acts; and an aspirant on the Path must realize that all three are of equal importance. Contrary to accepted beliefs, our thoughts and feelings are no more solely our own than are our acts and behavior. We are responsible for them and we are also responsible for their effect upon others,
Not all our karmic debts are carried over from previous incarnations. We are setting up good or bad karmic obligations every day of our lives, and these debts sometimes fall due almost as soon as contracted. Again, one or several lives may pass before conditions are right for the payment of such obligations. Regardless of when or where, the law of cosmic justice does not deviate. But it is our prerogative to determine whether we shall pay willingly and lovingly or unwillingly and resentfully. If we choose the latter we but add to our burden; the balance can be made true only when we awaken to the necessity of obeying divine Law.
Forgiveness of sin alone exempts us from measure-for-measure payment of these obligations; not because the debt is wiped out but because forgiveness comes as the result of repentance, reform, and restitution voluntarily made. The cosmic scales are then balanced by our own will to righteousness. We ourselves are the Law! The record of our indebtedness is then removed from our vital body by the Recording Angels who faithfully keep score. It no longer operates as a causative factor in this or future incarnations.
There are five distinct ways in which constructive or destructive karma operates to condition mankind: through the individual, through the family, the community, the race, and the nation. Be it noted, however, that no person is ever fated to do wrong. Every evil act is an act of free will, committed despite the resistance of whatever conscience the person has developed in opposing such an act.
Individual negative karma is worked out as follows: one individual injures another. The former's suffering during purgatorial expiation following release from this plane brings about a realization of the wrong done and, as a rule, repentance. When both parties concerned reincarnate at the same time, the wrongdoer finds himself in a position to render service to the one he has previously wronged. If he grasps the opportunity all is well and both persons are benefited. If he does not he is given a second opportunity in another incarnation. If he still refuses he will later find himself in a position where he is forced by inescapable circumstances to discharge the obligation; or he himself will become the victim of someone's wrong-doing and in this way learn of the suffering he has inflicted in the first instance. He also learns that hate ceases not by hate, but can be absolved only by love and service. Under karmic law the third life inevitably strikes an accurate balance.
Advanced persons choose to pay off as much karma as they can during each earthly sojourn, that past debts may be liquidated as quickly as possible. The sooner this is done the sooner they are free to make more rapid progress. Weaker persons, unable to bear up under severe hardships, are given easier lives whereby they may pay their debts in small coin, so to speak. The latter are, of course, much longer in reaching final liberation. By giving to each and all whatever can be borne and no more, the great Hierarchies are steadily furthering human progress. The first are referred to in the biblical statement: "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth."
Family karma and individual karma are closely related. Egos do not just happen to be born into certain families. Karmic ties bring them into close relationship that old scores may be amicably adjusted and the record cleared. If the adjustment is particularly difficult an Ego may enter the same family several times in succession. Also, an advanced Ego may embody in a lower race to work for its upliftment.
So long as ill feeling exists between two persons as the result of a past relationship, the score is not settled nor the debt wiped out even though there may appear to be an amiable adjustment. "Nothing is ever settled until it is settled right." Sometimes, somewhere the old tie must be renewed and discord be resolved in love.
In the third type of karma individuals are drawn together in communities where they may benefit from past services, or may suffer deprivation as the result of past prodigalities and lack of effort. Those who labor earnestly and sincerely for communal betterment in one life will find good prepared for them in the next.
Man has no abilities, capacities, or privileges that he has not earned. But he can lose that which he has merited if he does not put it to good use. The law decrees that to mis-use or abuse means to lose. Karmic law is impersonal. Being a divine Law it works with unerring justice — justice that has a quality of mercy, for no mitigating factor is ever overlooked. Browning well described its perfect operation thus: "God is Law yet God is Love."
Primitive man is practically without conscience. Conscience may be defined as the voice of the soul; and soul is the product of evolution, the fruitage of an Ego's effort through many incarnations to assimilate experience in terms of soul growth. This growth is continuous from incarnation to incarnation, and conscience is its expression. The older and richer the soul development of an individual, the clearer the voice of conscience and the more readily he listens and acts upon its guidance. Knowing this, occultists look with compassion rather than censure on natives of younger and less evolved races who lend themselves to acts not countenanced by civilization. The more spiritual men become the more closely is their personality attuned to the admonitions of their conscience. Abraham Lincoln declared, "The only ruler I have is my conscience — and the following of God in it."
As previously stated, conscience is acquired through suffering incident to purgatorial processes following physical death. The deeper the impress of sin the more severe must be the cleansing measures. Hence, the stronger and clearer will be the conscience related thereto; and the more insistent will be its warning voice when, in future lives, the individual is tempted to repeat the wrongdoing. For this reason St. Paul declared that the greatest sinner becomes the greatest saint.
In his occult novel Zanoni, Bulwer Lytton describes a peculiar and marvelous power which he terms Vril, a power that could be used constructively or destructively. It is a panacea for all suffering and disease, yet it can annihilate vast armies. Occultists know that such a force does exist and that it will be available for use in the near future. It is more mysterious and more potent than the force released from the atom, but it is definitely human and has its source in the living organism of man himself.
Mention has been made of the vibrant life coursing through the Desire World. This life force has a corresponding center and flow in the human body. The fictional Vril will be available to every person in exact proportion to his conservation and transmutation of this life force into soul power. The work of transmutation is long and arduous. Poise, self-control, finding the Most High Place within, are essential first steps. Because of its untold potential for harm, all destructive impulses must be weeded out before a neophyte can be entrusted with knowledge and use of this force. Were such safeguards not taken chaos would reign in the world and pandemonium would supersede the orderly processes of creation.
Purifying the emotions from base desire is fundamental preparation for transmutation. Massed emotional rhythms exert tremendous impulses for good or ill. This is seen in mob action where a blind emotional impulse quickly gets out of control. This example gives a bare inkling of the soul power active in an awakened Initiate, who is able to unleash a current so powerful that darkness and evil are instantly dissipated. But as human beings are free agents, he may not do it until they themselves choose.
The energy-substance of the Desire World moves with a rapidity exceeding that of light waves. That portion attracted by humanity for its evolutionary use responds in varying degrees to the influences of our sevenfold planetary chain. Among primitive men, when desire was strong and mind was weak, Saturn played a prominent role. The fear currents engendered by vast cosmic forces surrounding humanity would have congealed the currents of man's desire body bad it not been for the fluidic influence of the Moon and the dynamic warring impulses of Mars which also played upon him.
Much later in the evolutionary cycle man began to learn, and is continuing to learn, to respond to the higher influences of the Sun, Venus, and Mercury. As this development proceeds humanity will be attuned increasingly to radiations of beauty, harmony, compassion, and peace.
Attainment of the future will come largely through the planetary forces of Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune. Under their influence wars and all other destructiveness will be dissolved in the effulgent light of universal peace and brotherhood, with Love Eternal reigning upon Earth. Their benign radiation will effect a complete transmutation of emotion into soul qualities. Then perfected man, "joint heir with Christ," will prepare for His Second Coming. "He that controlleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a city," observed a wise Initiate-king, pointing the way for all who aspire to this high attainment.
An interesting illustration of right and wrong methods of transmuting the desire nature (sense life) is given in legends about two famous Greek heroes, Orpheus and Odysseus. As the fleet of the latter came within hearing distance of beautiful sea sirens who, by their seductive music, lured all listeners to their ruin, be had wax put in the ears of the sailors and ordered himself bound to the mast so he could not free himself. This depicts dependence on externalities, which always fail in the end. Many of his sailors escaped and met death in the waves. Down through the ages men and women have sought to benumb the sense life, only to meet with disappointment or disaster. There is only one way to transmute sense life into soul qualities and that is through the power of spiritualized will. This is the divine rod or staff within man himself, the staff that budded for Tannhauser and brought him absolution from sins committed under the influence of the siren Venus (lower nature).
Orpheus, the Grecian Saviour-hero, illustrates the right way. He resorted to no external props. Instead, he struck his seven-stringed lyre (the seven major spiritual centers within his body) and drowned the siren's music with his own wonderful soul harmonies — the same celestial measures be used to calm storms, make skies to clear, and flowers to bloom.
There is no limit to the powers latent within man, waiting only the master touch for vivification. Vast unexplored areas of spiritual knowledge and spiritual power are his for the taking. By veiled allusions and in parables, a hint of this opportunity has been given by the Wise of all times. It only remains for man to awaken, to accept and to demonstrate his own powers.
The first Tarot glyph typifies the state of completed transmutation. The High Priest, aura crowned, is seated upon his throne. In one hand be holds the cup of human passions. That he has gained complete mastery over them is signified by his other hand being placed over the cup. His emotional nature has become for him a "sea of glass," the sea whereon walk the redeemed in Revelation.
The Mystic Grail Cup from which the Christ drank, and which has become the communion cup of the Church, has the same esoteric significance. Some day the Church will re-discover the truths about this cup that were known to early Christians.
The great motive power of mankind. When this tremendous force is brought under the dictates of spiritualized will, man becomes superman. Any attempt to master it by human will power is a grave mistake. Sooner or later it will turn, as did the Hydra in Greek mythology, and with doubled force rend its would-be master. Only by the power of spirit (Fire Force) can desire be transmuted into true soul attributes.
There are three principal centers within the human body temple wherein the process of transmutation may be effectively consummated. These are the three fire centers: the sacral plexus under Sagittarius; the heart center under Leo; the head center under Aries. The initial step of purification is the work of the sacral plexus, symbolized by the birth of the Christ within. By such purification the fiery currents of the desire body are brought under the domination of the Spirit.
John the Baptist announced, "He that cometh after me is mightier than I . . . he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire." The second step under Leo is to direct constructively this powerful bridled force through the heart center and into channels of love and compassion. From this heart center are born eternal masterpieces of art, science, and literature. Its energies must be used in creative activities: when rightly executed, they will inevitably bear the signature of that Light never seen on land or sea. For these energies to lie fallow or stagnate is one of the greatest tragedies of human existence.
Under Aries the head center unites the forces engendered by purification of the sacral center with the love and service of the heart center. Amalgamation of these two currents produces that dynamic spirit-force termed Vril, a force that lends itself to instantaneous healing, thought communication, levitation and other demonstrations indicative of those who have attained to mastership.
In regard to this perfective discipline, Proclus, the fifth century Greek Neo-Platonist, wrote: "Oracles teach that divine fire obliterates all stains derived from existence." And Marcilio Falino, the Italian Platonist, wrote: "This Fire enkindled within us is more like heaven than what is left behind. It is light incorporeal and the most powerful of all things."
— Corinne Heline
